FIRST EDITION, Octavo hardcover (Near FINE) in d/w (VG+); all our specials have minimal description to keep listing them viable. Greene used another pair of delusional heroes in "Monseigneur Quixote" to achieve a similar effect as in "Travels with my aunt". He wishes everything could go back to normal, but the villagers tell him he must seize this new opportunity. A book of moral complexity that explores deep theological themes in a light-hearted, accessible way. Always looking for ways to move Father Quixote elsewhere, he doesn’t like it when the villagers give Father Quixote so much attention because it makes him susceptible to pride and vanity.

A wonderfully picturesque and profoundly moving tale of innocence at large amidst the shrines and fleshpots of modern Spain, Graham Greene’s novel , like the Cervante’s seventeenth-century classic, is also a brilliant fable for our times. The climax of Greene’s book is absolutely rousing within the larger context of these works, and the last pages similarly heartbreaking.Monsignor Quixote’ is very clearly intended as a parallel or companion piece to ‘Don Quixote’ and the reader will surely benefit greatly from having read, or at least being significantly familiar with Cervantes original novel. Monsignor Quixote and Sancho are taken in by the monks at the monastery of Oseira and their journey comes to an end.

Running alongside and very central throughout Monsignor Quixote are the themes of faith and belief – a faith in religious and political writings, a belief in God and political doctrine; but also here is doubt – a very human doubt in faiths and beliefs held. In 1985, Greene and Christopher Neame adapted the novel into a television film starring Alec Guinness and Leo McKern, as well as featuring several other notable actors including Ian Richardson and Graham Crowden. You talk about him at every opportunity, you pretend that my saints' books are like his books of chivalry, you compare our little adventures with his.

In this novel, Greene uses almost the same technic in the dialogues between a roman catholic priest, father Quixote and a communist Mayor, obviously Sancho. Quixote embarks on a trip in his car -- dubbed "Rocinante" -- with his Communist friend, Sancho Zancas (Leo McKern), getting involved in numerous adventures while on the road. In the subsequent course of events, Quixote and his companion have all sorts of funny and moving adventures along the lines of his ancestor's on their way through post- Franco Spain.

page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. The Don Camillo stories were created by Italian author Giovannino Guareschi (1908–68), and are highly entertaining. And then there's the 'road movie' setting, effectively adapted to a television film in 1985, starring Alec Guinness: https://www. So in Monsignor Quixote - read Father/Monsignor Quixote for Don Quixote; the deposed communist Mayor for Sancho Panza; Rocinante the exhausted car for Rocinante the exhausted horse and religious/theological writings along with those of Marx and Lenin for tales of Chivalry.

Now, I haven’t read Cervantes’ novel but there is so much in Greene’s tale that is drawn from it that I almost don’t need to.

What I believe is that there is actually a plot, an improvised and jaunty one, running through the richly written conversations; that the deliberately old-fashioned prose is actually a strength in hearkening back to a slower, more leisurely time when people would have patience to talk and think and reflect and that Greene's queries into faith, belief and doubt have a mellow and poignant flexibility to them that makes them worth revisiting again. Having progressed to about the half-way point, I had my fill of circular discussions and even the odd self-reverential mention of the "whisky priest" (featured in Greene's The Power and the Glory), and skimmed through the rest of the book.Quixote and Sancho drink and talk - about Judas and Stalin, the prodigal son, Marx, and belief that wears off like vodka. Monsignor Quixote' is simple, loving, matter-of-fact, a meditation on doubt and faith, a critique of post-Franquist Spain, a critique of hierarchy, and funny in the most joyful of ways.